Disillusion
by Sarryn
Summary: Mille makes a risque deal with Carrot: One kiss and he won't bother him again, if he doesn't enjoy it. Unfortunately Marron walks in...(yaoi, manga based)
1. Deal

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Sorcerer Hunters, but that hasn't stopped me from writing about them.  
  
Warning: This story contains the themes of incest, maybe some violence, sex (a bit graphic in scenes), and male/male relationships. If any of these may offend you then stop reading. If, however, you do read this, in spite of my warnings, and find it offensive then I have to say it is your own fault. Some scenes are of an erotic nature, but I have attempted to write them as tastefully as my ability allows.  
  
Note: I will not accept any flames, however, comments and criticisms are welcome. I am under the assumption that anyone reading this has a clear understanding of the difference between flames and criticisms so I don't have to explain it. Here are some reason why I don't accept flames: 1) they generally include an attack on the author's character without regard to previous or future works that may or may not be in the same vein, 2) not only are they childish, but they make the writer of them sound immature and not old enough to read the material contained herein, 3) flames help neither the author nor the flamer to improve the work and, therefore, are not constructive, 4) if something is so offensive as to elicit the impulse to flame then it is better forgotten and not dwelled upon, 5) you waste time writing it and I waste time reading and then deleting it, 6) it won't do you any good to point out my lack of scruples, morals, intelligence, sanity, etc., because not only don't I care, but I won't listen.  
  
So, anyway, please review and no flames. Oh, this treads between the manga and anime. So if you haven't watched and read both, or either, but then you wouldn't be here, then some things might seem off. (Deus, if you read this, I will kill you!)  
  
Much Love, S-girl  
  
  
  
Disillusion  
  
He, my brother, had always been invincible to me. Nothing and no one could even hope to lay him low. He was indomitable and indestructible to my young mind. Then an illness swept through our town and he was the first to fall and the last to recover.  
  
Our parents had forbidden me from entering his room, our room before he took ill, in fear that I would also catch the sickness. They often found me standing with indecisive agitation before his door. With frightening anger, perhaps due to my brother's worsening condition and concern for my own health, they would shoo me away. I watched them enter and exit the room many times a day, a week. Sometimes they carried steaming bowls of broth or new remedies to try (my mother's ability to draw upon the earth's healing energies had proven inutile. In fact it only seemed to erode his condition, which puzzled everyone to no end) and at other times they ushered in strangers. Despite all this, though, nothing seemed to work and late at night, when they thought I was asleep, their angry, mutually frustrated voices would leech through the thin walls of our house. We all knew families who had already lost members, mostly children. Some of those children had even been our friends.  
  
Yet despite our parents' anxiety and my own trepidation, I wanted to see him. For weeks I had been banned from his bedside and, being five, I couldn't fully comprehend their reasons. So I took it into my head to visit him in spite of our parents' restriction.  
  
On that day I opened the door with the utmost care, having already made certain that my parents wouldn't find it necessary to return any time soon, and crept into the room. Sickness and death seemed to hold court in that sepulchral asylum. A soft panting filled the sticky air and managed to override the furious pounding of my young heart.  
  
My brother lay there, as white as the sheets about him, with such stillness that I felt the urge to call out to our parents and announce his death. Then I detected that the painful sounding exhalations came from him. Sure enough the smooth sheets jerked under his labored breaths. He lived.  
  
"Brother?" I queried with great apprehension as I moved closer. He made no reply. I inched closer until I could see the drops of sweat dripping down his sallow face and the hectic flush burning across his cheeks. I found myself at the edge of the bed moments later. I called out to him again and yet I received no answer.  
  
My invincible brother was gone and instead this wretched, ugly doll-boy had replaced him. I felt betrayed and angry. I wanted nothing more than to lash out at this imposter that dared to masquerade as my beloved brother.  
  
The door thundered open and our parents stormed into the room. They dragged me out screaming.  
  
"That's not my brother! That's not him!"  
  
* * *  
  
Carrot Glace scratched his head and glanced about the still marble hall. He glanced left-no girls-and then he glanced right-still no girls. Of course he hadn't really expected there to be in any, being in the Stella Church Main Diocese, but that didn't mean he couldn't still look. He had a vague idea of waiting to see if Dotta would fly by so he could proposition her, but she rarely left Big Mama's side and if she did it was either when he and the rest of the Sorcerer Hunters were on a special mission or she was 'making babies' with Siryuse.  
  
A deceptively sweet giggle reached his ears and he paled. Perhaps he should have made his wish more defined, as in not guys who acted like girls, but real, fully equipped, not necessarily human but human shaped, girls.  
  
"Mille?" Carrot croaked as the purple-haired Haz Knight threw his arms about the boy's neck and snuggled happily against him. Mille Feuille giggled coquettishly and ran a provocative finger down Carrot's chest despite his vocal protests.  
  
"Did you miss me, dear?" the man purred, tightening his grip upon the hapless Carrot.  
  
"Hell no!"  
  
"That's rude. I missed you, though." The boy issued a strangled shriek and struggled desperately to free himself from the unwanted embrace.  
  
"Let go of me, you pervert!"  
  
"Now that's not a very nice thing to say to your lover," Mille cooed in mock hurt.  
  
"We are not lovers! Now let me go!"  
  
The Knight rubbed his cheek against the boy's chest and giggled girlishly. "I'll let you go under one condition."  
  
"Condition? What condition?" Mille grinned with mischievous glee and caressed Carrot's cheek. The boy tried to edge away having given up violent demurrals.  
  
"I get a kiss." The Haz Knight giggled again and batted innocent amber eyes up at him. Carrot opened his mouth to tell Mille that he'd rather go to hell first, but then a thought struck him.  
  
"I'll let you, if you promise not to bother, hug, fondle or etcetera me from now on." The purple-haired man pouted and then he smiled. Carrot felt a spike of unease stab his spleen.  
  
"How about this," Mille countered, "If you don't enjoy it, I won't bother you again." He grinned with wicked gaiety. Carrot regarded him with blatant suspicion for a few moments, as he searched for any loopholes. I like girls only, he thought with care, So, since Mille is a guy, I win and I'll get rid of him to boot. During the time it took for the boy to reason this out the Knight received a few extra seconds of uninterrupted cuddling.  
  
"It's a deal."  
  
The sudden stillness of the Knight caused Carrot to look down. Mille stared at him, face utterly lacking in emotion, and the boy flushed.  
  
The playful teasing and flirtatious manner slipped from the Knight's effeminate face. In its place the fierceness and carefully controlled heat he only displayed during combat surfaced. Carrot gulped loudly and pressed himself against the cool marble wall at his back, as if he could escape this suddenly unexpected situation.  
  
"Remember, no running this time," the purple-haired man chided, straightening up. Carrot had never realized just how tall Mille Feuille really was and he found the new discovery unnerving. The Haz Knight had always seemed and acted so feminine that Carrot never really considered him entirely in the realm of the masculine.  
  
Reflexively Carrot squeezed his eyes at the first touch of this new, disconcerting Mille's hands upon his face. A furious hammering thundered in his chest, as his heart attempted to claw its way out. Even with eyes shut he felt the Knight draw closer, warm breath brushing across his own unprotected mouth. A frightened, little whimper escaped, as the minutes, hours, days passed and the purple-haired man made no move to eliminate the hairsbreadth between their mouths.  
  
He gasped at the momentary flicker of a moist tongue, the first hint of the waiting invasion. Before his next breath the anticipation was over.  
  
* * *  
  
I stopped dead at the sight that greeted me, as I turned a corner and entered another one of the many marble hall ways in the Stella Church Main Diocese. My vision burned with the image placed before it, even as my mind tried to form a marginally coherent thought. A hitching gasp fled my painfully constricted throat and the blood raged with impotent fury through my fragile veins.  
  
I watched with a sort of surreal detachment as Mille Feuille, current leader of the Haz Knights and Big Mama's most trusted advisor, kissed my oddly unresisting older brother. I felt my cheeks heat with a burning blush as the full force of the presentation bludgeoned its way into my consciousness. I shouldn't gawk at such a private moment, but I couldn't, wouldn't, look away.  
  
Mille's larger form blocked most of my view of my brother, but I could see one of his hands clench and relax spasmodically. It seemed not to know what to do with itself. The Haz Knight solved the problem by running his elegant hands down my brother's arms and twining his fingers with those of my brother.  
  
A shudder, angry and luscious, flowed through my body and I found myself pressed with my back against the wall, one hand clutching the collar of my robe and the other splayed against the wall. My breath sputtered out in choppy gasps as Mille, never abandoning the sensual kiss, drew my brother's arms above his head and held them against the wall with one implacable hand. The other hand slid downward; stopping briefly to caress my brother's flushed cheek and the quivering column of his throat. I watched as that hand, long fingered and elegant in an androgynous way, glided down and tripped coltishly about the hem of my brother's tunic.  
  
A quiet gasp rose from my brother and myself, as that skilled hand darted up beneath the rough fabric. It was then that I realized my voyeurism did not place me in my brother's stead and under the Knight's skillful manipulations. Instead it was I who pulled shudders from the supplicant body of my brother. It was I who massaged his stomach and sought darker treasures in the moist cavity of his mouth.  
  
My head fell back and my lips parted in soft pants, yet I never removed my voracious gaze. I watched as Mille's hand abandoned the court of my brother's chest and ventured lower, and I followed in my fantasy. I held my brother in my hand and drew forth sighs and moans with unequaled facility, even as I plundered his unresisting lips. I played him about the brink of ecstasy and release, both the master and slave to our mutual, carnal desire.  
  
The Haz Knight and I licked our way, mine purely imaginative, down my brother's neck, his heaving chest, releasing his hands to flutter anxiously at his sides, down farther, leaving a wet trail to tell of our passage. I couldn't continue, couldn't follow the path to its inevitable, incestuous conclusion. That is right, I told myself even as my beloved brother's panting groans leeched into my ears, he is my brother and I shouldn't...  
  
I fastened my gaze upon his face and told myself that such fantasies were not to be thought. He was my brother, my older brother. Yet the look upon his face, a look of almost spiritual ecstasy mixed with the innocent confusion of one still untested in the bedroom, shattered my already shaking resolve. The very sight of his helpless and enraptured visage drove a blade of lust, the kind that hurt in way that was pleasure, deep into my gut.  
  
He shuddered, dark eyes wide, and then his whole body seemed to bend, flex unnaturally. A strange, almost religious stillness filled him and then he threw back his head and howled, howled with the voice of something less, or perhaps more, than human. The sound pierced my ears and drove the frenetic pulse of my blood to a euphoric agony.  
  
I lurched away from the wall and staggered back into the corridor I had exited moments, hours before. I could feel the throb of my own blood throughout the whole of my body and I could hear the slowly fading echoes of my brother's rapture. As I struggled vainly against the burning fever consuming my mind, I felt a deep, possessive rage seething up from my soul.  
  
I should be the one to bring my brother to such a release. I should be the one to cause him to scream like some inhuman thing.  
  
* * *  
  
Carrot sagged, arms and legs like useless blocks of granite, into Mille's waiting arms. The purple-haired man issued a deep throated laugh; the kind of masculine laugh that one only uses after bringing his lover to a climax that completely exhausts the recipient. Dimly the boy wondered if he'd ever have a justified reason to make such a laugh. He doubted it, considering his luck with the ladies.  
  
"That...That wasn't a kiss," he mumbled with a sort of listless, accusatory voice.  
  
"Are you honestly complaining?" Mille demanded with another laugh. Carrot took a few minutes to organize his brain into a coherent thinking organ before answering.  
  
"It wasn't fair."  
  
"Do you have any objections of a repeat?" The boy only managed to flush darkly, finding himself unable to meet the smiling Knight's knowledgeable eyes.  
  
"I like girls."  
  
"I like girls, too," Mille quipped. Carrot couldn't think of anything else to say that wouldn't lead him into further embarrassment or into a realization he wasn't ready to accept yet.  
  
What did I just do? he wondered for the thousandth time, as the Haz Knight guided him down the marble hallway.  
  
* * *  
  
  
  
From Sarryn:  
  
First of all I would like to say I have never written anything like this before, both for romance and for a same sex coupling. Yes, I have done the incest bit, but it was for Ayashi no Ceres (the incest was brother/ancestor, both were inhabiting the same body, and twin sister. I know strange, but if you've seen it, it makes sense, or at least more sense) and it was a one shot with nothing explicit. So I was thinking if I'm finally going to grit my teeth and write something explicit, sort of, why not make it about something I have no experience with. Therefore, I chose a male/male relationship and, because I have an emotional investment in Marron, Carrot and Mille, I made it an incestuous one with a pretty little love triangle to keep it interesting. I don't approve of incest in reality (ew, ew, ew), but I accept, and in this one case endorse, it in anime and manga.  
  
As to the debate about Carrot and Marron's sexuality, I'm not even going to argue. I don't really care which side they tread on in other people's minds. In fact I don't really believe either is defined as rigidly heterosexual or homosexual. In this fic they're gay and in the next they might be straight. Everything is up to interpretation. So don't even try to flame/rage/rail against me for this. It's only a story and, as such, does not reflect real life. I hope we are all mature enough to realize this.  
  
  
  
Now please REVIEW!!  
  
  
  
Next Chapter:  
  
The consequences of Marron seeing his brother and Mille together and how all three of their relationships change as a result of that one hallway encounter.  
  
From Sarryn:  
  
Why I say that I'm 'emotionally invested' in those two characters and what I mean by that. Also I'll be answering any questions posed and add some additional not quite rant-like paragraphs. 


	2. Admission

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Sorcerer Hunters, but that hasn't stopped me from writing about them.

****

Warning: This story contains the themes of incest, maybe some violence, sex (a bit graphic in scenes), and male/male relationships. If any of these may offend you then stop reading. If, however, you do read this, in spite of my warnings, and find it offensive then I have to say it is your own fault. Some scenes are of an erotic nature, but I have attempted to write them as tastefully as my ability allows.

So, anyway, please review and no flames. (Deus, if you read this part as well, I will most definitely kill you!)

Much Love,

S-girl

Disillusion

I knew my beloved brother had regained some measure of his former health when our mother and father ceased to argue late at night. Yet, every time I closed my eyes I would see the wraith-like creature masquerading in the flesh of my older brother. I refused to believe that that had been him. I felt someone had played a cruel joke on me. That wasn't my brother. 

After a week of quiet nights, at least for our parents for my nightmares became regular visitors to my dreaming mind, they allowed me to see him. I found him sitting listless against a mound, or rather a mountain of freshly laundered pillows. The room smelt of death's lingering kiss, a sort of musty, sweet-rank smell that told you that next time you wouldn't be so lucky. You wouldn't escape. My brother's cheeks were sunken and his flesh hung like tea-stained paper from his bony frame. For a second I thought he was a yellow skeleton turning the pages of a book with indifference. 

"Brother?" I queried tentatively. I wasn't certain that he was indeed my brother.

He turned his head towards me with a sort of mildly focused attention. Upon seeing me a weary smile crossed his face. He looked old in a way that only those recently ill could.

"Marron, I'm glad they've finally let you see me," he rasped with a voice that seemed to have lain dormant for an unimaginable period time. I crossed the room and stopped at the edge of the bed, my chin barely clearing the mattress. He reached out a lethargic hand and gently ruffled my hair. "How are you?"

"I'm doing fine, brother." It was him. He was my beloved brother. The hideous monstrosity of my earlier encounter proved to be a transient intruder. "I'm fine."

***

Carrot Glace picked up a pebble and put it down a top another. He picked up another and placed it on the second, but it fell off so he settled it down next to the first. He repeated the process several more times until a small pile formed in front of him. Then he plucked one up and tossed it into the pond in front of him. It struck the water with a mildly satisfying plunk and then promptly sank. Only the rippling water marked its passing, but then a teasing zephyr ruffled the pond's surface and all traces of the pebble vanished. He picked up another stone and skipped it across. He repeated this until the pile was gone. He didn't feel completed at all. 

"I like girls," he muttered obstinately for the millionth time. Then he mentally wondered what he and Mille had done, which was a vast improvement over his wondering what Mille had done to him. Now he acknowledged complicity with the occurrence in the hall, instead of being the passive recipient. 

He tried to reason the incident away with something he considered to be logic. First all he liked girls (no more debate was needed over that in his mind). Mille Feuille acted and looked like a girl, most of time—So far so good. If it walked like a duck, talked like a duck, it might be an albino goat in disguise, but until it acted that way a person was safe calling it a duck. 

"That's right! Alright!" He jumped up with an excited shout. Now he didn't have to worry about it anymore. All he had to do was avoid the Haz Knight, easier said than done, and he was home free. 

"Carrot!" The boy issued a startled yelp and spun around to find an irate, titian-haired girl standing there.

"Tira," he squeaked. "What are you doing here?" Sun glinted dangerously of her tinted glasses.

"What have you done now?" she demanded bringing out her much-used mall from the folds of her voluminous red cloak. The boy blanched and backpedaled frantically, waving his hands in denial.

"Nothing." Her suspicious frown deepened and her hands turned white as she gripped the handle of the mallet harder. She knows, he thought wildly. Did she see us? This thought led him to take two more steps back and into the placidly waiting pond. 

Tira Misu emitted a sound of surprise, as the water closed about a wildly flailing Carrot. A few seconds later he broke the surface coughing violently.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." He looked down and grimaced with annoyance. Then he sneezed. "I'm just a little wet and cold."

"I'm sorry, Carrot," Tira apologized in a small voice. He immediately recognized her tone of voice from when they had been children. Then she would have burst into worried tears, but now she rarely cried. In fact he honestly couldn't remember a time she had cried since becoming a Sorcerer Hunter. Despite this he hastily assured her that he was perfectly fine and he had planned on taking a bath soon anyway.

"If you're sure..."

"I just need to change," he reassured her again. By that time he had left the pond and was emptying his boots of water. She nodded with relief and then waved good-bye to him as he went back inside.

As soon as the archway leading to the garden faded from sight, he heaved a relieved sigh. He had been a complete idiot to think that Tira had suspected anything, and a bigger one for falling into the pond. She probably thought he had been plotting how to seduce Dotta or something similar in nature. There was no possible way that she would even be capable of conceiving of what he and Mille had done.

Heat exploded in his cheeks with such violence that he felt light-headed. He smacked himself several times. 

"I'm not blushing, dammit. I'm not." He ground out a frustrated groan and told himself to stop thinking about it, which only served to make him think on it more.

Alternating between imprecating and striking himself, he finally reached his room. He flung the door open with an especially virulent curse.

He blinked in surprise.

"Marron?"

The younger boy had risen from his sitting position at the table near a pair of large windows, but, upon seeing his older brother's sodden condition, he sat back down.

"What happened, brother?" he finally inquired after staring at Carrot in shock.

"I fell into the pond," the older boy replied with a small shrug of embarrassment as he tossed his dripping boots on the floor. A slight smile tugged the corners of the younger boy's mouth. Soon both brothers found themselves laughing without reserve.

"I suppose you should change before you catch cold," Marron gasped as they wound down. Carrot brushed away a few mirthful tears and agreed.

"Was there something you wanted to talk about?" he asked as he yanked his tunic up over his head. He heard his brother violently push his chair out. Curious, Carrot lowered his arms and cast a puzzled look at his decidedly uncomfortable looking younger brother. "Marron?"

"It's nothing important. I will talk with you later." The younger boy stood up abruptly, avoiding his brother's questioning gaze.

"Come on, Marron, you wouldn't have been waiting here if it was nothing. Now sit and tell me what's on your mind." Carrot gave a small grunt a satisfaction when the younger boy obeyed the sit command. However, he seemed reluctant to unburden his mind. Knowing his brother would speak when ready, Carrot pulled off his damp tunic and carelessly tossed it aside.

"I..." His brother's soft voice barely reached his ears. "I..." Carrot noticed a slight flush on the younger boy's cheek. He frowned worriedly. Had his brother caught a cold?

"Are you feeling okay?" Carrot asked coming over to feel the younger boy's forehead. The boy went rigid at his touch and stared fixedly at a spot on the wall. Feeling a little hurt the elder boy took back his hand and cocked his head to one side.

"Yes...I'm not sick." 

"Did something happen?"

"No...Not really." Carrot puzzled over this reply. What did Marron mean by 'not really'?

"Did someone do something to you? Did someone hurt you?" Carrot demanded with a surge of protective fury from their childhood. He momentarily forgot that Marron hadn't needed help in dealing with bullies since he gained his magical ability. "I'll bust his—or her—teeth in." Marron smiled softly and shook his head. Carrot sighed in relief. So no one had hurt his little brother.

"It's not that at all, brother."

"So you're not sick, nothing happened, or at least 'not really', and no one's hurt you...I don't know what else can be the matter. You've stumped me, little brother." He ruffled the younger boy's long hair affectionately and smiled kindly at him when he didn't flinch away. 

"I'm sorry for wasting your time. I won't bother you any further." Gracefully the younger and taller boy stood and moved past his bemused brother.

"Remember, if you ever need someone to talk to I'm here for you."

"I know that, brother. Thank you."

Carrot heaved a sigh as the door closed behind his brother. Sometimes he wondered what was going on in that deep brain of his. Obviously something had been bothering Marron, but, for the life of him, Carrot couldn't figure it out what without a spotlight interrogation. 

"He'll tell me when he wants to," he murmured undoing his belt.

"Carrot, dear!" The boy shrieked and jumped backward, a cheerful, purple-haired Haz Knight clinging to his neck. 

"Where did you crawl from, Mille?" he cried, arms wind milling wildly for balance. 

"I've been waiting for you. I would have met you at the door, lover."—Carrot started sputtering at the Knight's little name of endearment—"But your brother arrived five minutes before and I didn't want him to alert you. So now will you answer my question from before." 

"What question?"

"Do you have any objection of a repeat?" Mille Feuille brought his face close the struggling boy, a soft smile on his face. Carrot froze, eyes wide and panicked. Gravity chose that moment to reassert its dominance and the two crashed roughly into the table. It held their combined weight for a moment and then, with a deafening crack, it shattered and both went down. Carrot found himself pinned down among the wooden wreckage with the Knight straddling him, the warmth of the Knight's body heating his water-chilled body.

"Are you okay?" the purple-haired man asked with concern. 

"Yeah." Carrot experimentally tried to wriggle free, but the man's weight and position prevented success.

"Good. Then what's your answer?"

"My answer?" The man leaned down and nipped the boy's lips playfully.

"Don't be coy, Carrot, it doesn't suit you." 

The boy squeezed his eyes close and began to mentally chant that he only liked girls. The encounter the other day didn't prove anything. His...reaction had been a freak accident. He couldn't possibly enjoy a...repeat. 

He had to ignore the strange ache pulsing through his blood or he would lose something irreplaceable. If he yielded to the slow-burn desire, then how would he define himself? Would he still be the messenger of love? Would he still be Carrot Glace, crazed womanizer? He had lived with that identity for so long, longer than memory, that he had never tried to be anything else. Who would he be? Panic ripped into him. He had never doubted his own identity before. It has always just been there like a reassuring hand, but now he found himself hurtling through an unknown moment without a point of reference or anything to hold on to. What would he be in the end? Soon he would have to make a choice, he knew that, but he didn't know what the choices were or what would happen. Nothing made sense anymore.

A peculiar warmth trickled past his temple and into his scalp. 

"Carrot? What's wrong?" Mille's gentle voice reached his ears as the first soft sob escaped his lips. The boy could make no reply around the hopeless noises emerging from his traitorous throat, not that he could have articulated his confused thoughts anyway. 

"I...I don't know. I..."

The Knight shushed him and moved off in order to gather him into a comforting embrace. He stroked the boy's dark hair and carefully sipped the bitter tears leaking from his eyes. After a few minutes the boy quieted and opened slightly puffy eyes. Mille placed a silencing hand over his mouth before he could say anything.

"You don't have to speak. You can pretend whatever afterward, but for now just feel." Carrot, grateful that Mille wasn't pushing him into an awkward admission, acquiesced by relaxing into the man's arms. He didn't have to decide anything, yet.

The purple-haired man smiled tenderly and caressed the boy's tear-damp face. Carrot shivered, acutely aware of his position in the man's lap, and closed his brown eyes again. The Knight tilted his head up with and lightly brushed a thumb across his still mouth. The boy issued a small gasp as the man delicately bit his lower lip and stretched the caught flesh out. Then he released it and swirled a warm tongue over the delicious hurts. Carrot whimpered softly and shifted restlessly, one hand gripping the Knight's shoulder the other ripping into the carpeted floor.

Mille expertly thrust his tongue into the boy's unresisting mouth and slipped one adroit hand past the loose waistband of his pants. Carrot reared upward in surprise at the first touch, eyes snapping open in burgeoning panic. The Haz Knight distracted him with another heated kiss. 

Carrot couldn't think around the warm hand encircling his member with calculated firmness. Then the hand began to move in time to his erratic heartbeat and the world became shattered fragments sensation. He strained against the solid arm against his back, as if he could flee the aching pleasure ridding his body. He almost felt nauseous from the intensity. Moaning loudly, he tried to escape the agonizing tension that bowed his spine and sent jagged stars of light into his reeling mind.

Thrashing madly, restrained by Mille's unmoving arm, he arched back and let loose howl of pained ecstasy into the Knight's mouth. He caught a glimpse of the man's dark grin before everything faded into a weightless oblivion. 

"Carrot." Pain flared up in his cheek. Carrot snapped awake with such speed that he nearly blacked out again.

"What? Hey, did you slap me?" he demanded as he touched his stinging cheek. The boy found himself neatly arranged on the floor with a concerned Knight crouching beside him, one hand raised for another light smack.

"I thought I'd accidentally killed you," Mille told him with a small smile of relief. He lowered his hand and offered it to Carrot. The boy accepted and sat up.

"You slapped me."

"I had to make sure you were alive."

"You slapped me."

"Want me to kiss it and make it better?" The boy flushed darkly, remembered what had caused him to pass out in the first place, and turned a particularly brilliant shade of carmine. He had let it happen again. Was he still the same person now? Was he still Carrot Glace, messenger of love? Did he still like girls? He frowned and carefully examined himself. Somehow the answers eluded him and he was left with a sort of anxious confusion. 

"I'm still me, aren't I?" He turned worried eyes to the patiently waiting Knight. The man reached out and brushed back a few locks of sweat dampened hair.

"If you weren't, I wouldn't be attracted to you." The boy grimaced and rolled his eyes, all worry slipping away. He would think about everything latter. Maybe then he'd understand whatever it was that bothered him. Maybe then he would know why he hadn't put up more of a fight.

"You're attracted to anything with two legs." The man flicked his nose and chuckled innocently. 

"Jealous?"

"What? No!"

"Yes, you are!" Mille giggled and tackled a sputtering Carrot. 

"Stop it! Thanks to you I need to take a bath now." The man purred in agreement, running a finger down the boy's chest until the boy grabbed his hand to stop it.

"Want company?"

Carrot blanched, then blushed darker than ever. "No!"

"Maybe once I've opened up your mind a little more..." He leaned closer with a beatific smile on his face. Carrot squeaked a half-hearted protest and tried to wriggle away. "We can't have you all dirty, now can we?"

"Alone. I'm taking it alone," the boy declared, finally managing to free himself. "I...I need to think."

"Maybe another time," the Knight replied, unperturbed. The boy made no reply. 

***

"Mille Feuille." The purple-haired Haz Knight paused at the sound of my voice. He pivoted on one heel and turned to face me with his usual cheerful smile. He didn't seem any different than normal, despite having had my older brother moaning helplessly the other day. How could he manage that? How dare he? Didn't it evidence any reaction in him at all?

"Hello there, Marron. What's on your mind?" How could I tell him that I had seen him and my brother? There really was no tactful way to go about it. I would just have to settle with being blunt. Sometimes discretion failed to meet the occasion and now was such a time.

"I saw you and my brother the other day." A fleeting look of surprise, and even a touch of embarrassment, passed over his face and took away his smile. So he wasn't as unaffected as he appeared. Good. All I could think about was what I had seen. It consumed my thoughts with merciless heat. If it had been me there instead...

I could still see my brother's face so clearly as his ultimate pleasure played across it. A small stab of satisfaction entered my gut for I knew Mille Feuille had not seen it. I possessed something of my brother that he didn't. It was petty of me, but I didn't care. 

"I see," he replied softly and with utter seriousness. "What do you want me to say?"

What did I want him to say? He was the one who had usurped my rightful place with my brother. I knew what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him to leave my brother alone. That I should have been the one to...But in reality such a thing was impossible. The blood that bound us together also kept us apart. 

I could tell my brother anything, anything but the truth of my desires. His rejection would shatter me. It would break apart everything I held dear. I would loose him and I couldn't bear that. Yet I wouldn't change us being brothers, even if it meant that I could have him.

"I don't want to see him hurt by you or anyone else."

"Are you asking if I'll be faithful?"

"I suppose." The man grinned suddenly and strode closer.

"You are a very considerate brother. His heart'll be broken someday, if it hasn't been already." He searched my face, nodding slightly, and I felt as though I had missed something. He almost seemed to be telling me two things at once, carrying on two separate conversations. 

"But will you break it now?" I heard myself ask even as I attempted to make coherent logic out of his remark. Surely he couldn't guess...

"I will be as faithful as he is." I wanted to scream in frustration. I wanted to demand of him why my longings, my desires would never find satiation.

Jealousy ate at my heart every time Carrot raced off in the pursuit of some girl, and I feared that someday one of them would return his affection. Or perhaps he would fall for one of the Misu sisters who were only too eager for his love. Yet, that didn't stop me from wanting to...to tell him that he didn't have to look any further. I would make him happier than any woman could, complete him like no one else could.

"Marron?" I blinked in surprise, having forgotten Mille while under the influence of my own self-indulgent despair. I found the Knight regarding me with a peculiar look, or at least one that I had never observed, on his face.

"That is a rather doubtful answer, considering my brother," I hastily responded to his previous answer. Why did he keep staring at me like I was some lab animal that had done something unusual?

"And if you were in my position? You would be completely, devotedly faithful." I went rigid. I knew what society thought of such incestuous desires and, no matter how open minded the Haz Knight appeared to be, he was a member of society. 

"What are you insinuating?" The infuriating man grinned innocently, but his golden eyes spoke volumes. "Would you like a confession?" I demanded with cold anger. I had spent an entire lifetime restraining my emotions and yet anything to do with my brother always managed to break them free. 

"Not a confession, merely an admission," he replied with such gentleness, as if I was some unruly child that he wanted to calm down. "You aren't merely worried about your brother's heart, Marron. You are jealous. Now, I'm not so egocentric as to think it's over me. So the only other person would be..."

"My brother." He nodded briefly and then laughed softly. "Well?"

"Are you waiting for my judgment? For me to condemn you?" 

"And what else would you do? Carrot is my brother and I want him as a lover would, as you do." There, I had finally admitted it, said it aloud and in front Momma's Haz Knight no less. 

"So why haven't you pursued him? If you desire him so much." I gaped at him and I never gape.

"Haven't you been listening? He's my brother." What was he trying to accomplish? Was this some sort of trick? No, Mille was not cruel, intentionally. 

"If you love someone like that, then you have to go after them. Look at Chocolate, and even Tira in her own way." He gave me a coquettish wink. "And me."

"You love my brother? But I thought you wanted to sleep with everyone?"

"I'm not a whore, Marron," he told me with an indignant sniff. "I'm just more liberal in my thinking. Sure I wouldn't mind sleeping with them, and you, but in a serious relationship I would be monogamous."

"Where does that leave my brother?" Where did that leave me?

The man shrugged with a little sigh. "It all depends on him. If he's mature enough for one...Then, of course, there's you." I once again found myself the focus of our unnatural conversation. 

"Me?"

"I thought you wanted Carrot." 

"And, as I mentioned before, he's my brother. It would be incest." I spat out the last word. That word and all that it entailed were the cause of my misery, my damnation. Mille nodded with understanding, serious once again. 

"Doesn't love conquer all?" I had thought he was serious. Love conquering all was something children and romantics believed in. Sorcerer Hunters couldn't afford to be children or romantic, unless your name was Chocolate Misu, but she was a woman unto herself. 

"Not blood, not genetics." 

"And what of them? Incest is merely the procreation of the same, and, unless there's something I don't know about you two, I don't think children are going to be an issue."

"What?" I choked out. Children? My brother? What was Mille talking about? Were we even holding the same conversation in our heads? I was feeling so confused that I forgot to be mad at him. His logic proved to be a maze that I couldn't navigate unassisted. 

"Incest is considered perverted because of the offspring it would create if allowed. I mean, people would start to get suspicious if three armed kids were running around."

"I think you've lost me," I admitted with a bemused shake of my head.

"You two aren't trying to have children, so there's no problem. However..." He smiled, but it wasn't his usual smile. This one was almost predatory, feral. "You and I would be rivals." Rivals...Yes, we would and, if so, I had no intention of losing. "Unless you'd be willing to share." I choked again. 

"What?"

"Carrot's worth it. If you're up to it." He giggled and walked away while I attempted to articulate the incoherence of my mind. 

So I had come to terms with my desire for my brother and I begrudged that to Mille. However, now I found myself in opposition to the Haz Knight over my brother's affections. Unless I was willing to share...?

***

Carrot sneezed.

***

From Sarryn:

So I mentioned the fact that I considered myself 'emotionally invested' in Mille, Marron and Carrot. Now what do I mean? It's simple, at least to me. First of all, I have an attachment to Carrot that I normal reserve for female characters of anime shows. As in, I care who he's with and believe he can pretty much be with anyone. Also I'd rather read fics that center around him and with the other guys of the show (If Carrot wasn't a guy then I probably wouldn't be interested in yaoi now). Now Mille and Marron take the roles that I ascribe to possible love interests for the 'girl' (Carrot this time). So for me they can be in a relationship with no one else, but with my favored 'girl' (I'm not implying Carrot's a girl, but I usually only sympathize with the females in shows). 

Now for the questions people asked. The first one has to do with what Mille did to Carrot in the first chapter. Since there's no discrete way to put it, Mille went down on Carrot. The other question about Marron confronting Mille has been answered by the fic itself. I think. I hope. As to the threesome (can't spell the French way for the life of me), I haven't decided yet. It all depends on how the characters evolve. 

Now for a pseudo-rant about incest: as I have mentioned before, I don't approve of it in real life. Just because I write about it doesn't mean I believe that brothers and sisters should have sexual relations. However, I don't really care if relatives in anime and manga have sex. This is because it isn't real life, which opens a whole new can of worms. 

If anyone believes anime and manga characters are real people, then I'm sorry for offending you. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion and yours is just as valid as mine.

In addition I think I'll be doing a rewrite (not sure yet how major) of the whole Carrot and Mille interaction above. I might not, but if I do I'll let you know.

Now please REVIEW!!

Next Chapter:

The Sorcerer Hunters are sent out on another mission and Marron tells his brother the truth.

From Sarryn:

I'll be answering more questions and probably think up of some more pseudo-rants to regal you all with. It's good stuff. 


	3. Confrontation

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Sorcerer Hunters, but that hasn't stopped me from writing about them. Although, perhaps I should...

****

Warning: This story contains the themes of incest, maybe some violence, sex (a bit graphic in scenes), and male/male relationships. If any of these may offend you then stop reading. If, however, you do read this, in spite of my warnings, and find it offensive then I have to say it is your own fault. Some scenes are of an erotic nature, but I have attempted to write them as tastefully as my ability allows.

So, anyway, please review and no flames. (Deus, you've read this story! Prepare for death!)

Much Love,

S-girl

Disillusion

"What's marriage?" Mother giggled and murmured to my father how cute I was. Both of them smiled at each other in the sort of way that most children learn to interpret: they were about to have a moment of romantic nostalgia. 

"It's when two people who love each other very much decide to live together forever," Mother told me with one of her warm smiles. 

"Despite the fact that one of them might snore like a rockslide," my father quipped with an affectionate laugh. My mother gave him a mock glare and then patted me on the head.

"If you find someone to love, never let her go." In my young mind I mulled this over before nodding my acceptance. 

I looked up at my kind-hearted mother and asked her to marry me. Both of my parents broke down laughing and continued for some time. At that age I couldn't understand what they had found so humorous about my question. After all, hadn't it been they who told me only to marry someone I loved?

"Marron-sweetie, I'm already married to your father. You can only marry one person. So you have to make sure that person is the right one." She kissed my cheek and my father came over to ruffle my hair. I still felt confused over the whole issue of marriage and all the hitherto unknown technicalities, but their warmth and obvious love eased my mind. 

"Go out and play. Get some fresh air," my father told me as he swept my mother up into his arms. She shrieked cheerfully and swatted him on the head. He kissed her and I turned away before I saw anymore. My brother always made faces and rude noises when our parents decided to be romantic. I honestly couldn't blame him for that. 

I quickly left the house in search of my dear brother. Since his health had returned a month ago, he had decided that he wasn't going to spend any more time indoors than our parents forced him to. I found him lounging under a large tree and staring absently at the fleecy clouds that dotted the azure sky. With our parent's conversation still pregnant in my mind I hurried up to him. 

"What's up, Marron?" I loved him and they had told me that, if I found someone I loved, I should marry that person. 

"Will you marry me, brother?" He blinked in surprise and then grinned with amusement.

"You can't ask me that, Marron. Only girls and boys get married." I looked down, crestfallen. Mother and father hadn't told me that.

"But I love you," I told him softly. I wanted to stay with him forever. I wanted him to be my big brother forever. 

"Same here," he returned with an affectionate smile. He patted the grass next to him and beckoned me to sit down. I obeyed immediately and watched him watching the sky. "Hey, Marron."

"Yes?"

"What do you want to be when you get older?"

***

The sorcerer had time to scream out a denial of his eminent demise before a gargantuan, hairy fist crushed him into the shattered marble floor. The Minotaur reared up and howled with destructive pleasure. Satisfaction burned in its fire-red eyes as it reduced the mansion about it to rubble. Amid the billowing dust and falling debris two peopled watched impassively.

"Tira."

"I'm on it." The titian-haired girl snapped the whip between her hands and grinned eagerly. The Minotaur opened its gapping maw and issued a monstrous growl, which was cut short by an equally monstrous sneeze. "Did…Did he just sneeze?"

"Apparently," Marron replied with a perplexed frown.

"Good. I thought I was hearing things." With a wicked laugh the dominatrix launched herself at the rampaging monster. 

***

Carrot Glace sneezed and ignored the concerned look Tira shot him across the fire. He had been doing that a lot since falling into the pond. He feared the worst. He must've caught a cold from the chill. Of course it hadn't helped that Mille Feuille had accosted him before he could change his clothes. The exertion had probably...No, he wouldn't think about that right now. Instead he poked the blazing campfire with a stick.

"Are you sure you're okay, Carrot? You looked a little flushed," Tira told him worriedly. The stick fell from his fingers and he proceeded to slap his cheeks. He had fallen into another bout of blushing. He had been doing that a lot lately, too, ever since the other day with...Why did everything go back to that?

"I'm fine. Never felt better."

"Did I whip you too hard?"

"No harder than usual," he hastily assured her. He really wished she would stop bothering him, but he couldn't get angry with her. After all she was merely concerned with his well being.

She made a small sound of uncertainty and carefully scrutinized him. He squirmed under her gaze and hoped that she would get the hint that there was nothing wrong. Never mind that he was in serious mental anguish over the state of his sexuality and everything he thought he knew. Wait! Where did that come from? He'd sworn to himself that he'd stop thinking about it.

"What's that on your neck?" He froze, mind a complete blank. Then incoherent babble replaced the blankness and he found himself no better off. 

"My…my neck? What are you talking about, Tira?" He clapped an embarrassed hand over the red mark he knew to be there.

"That red splotch," Tira continued. Carrot turned away from her to find Marron watching him intently.

"It's probably only a rash," Carrot muttered looking at the ground. Actually it was Mille Feuille's parting present. A little token so that Carrot wouldn't forget him, as if he could. The boy blushed and fingered the mark. He could still feel the Knights insistent mouth…No, he couldn't. He didn't feel anything. There was nothing there. It was just…just…

He needed to be somewhere alone, away from everybody. Thoughts boiled restlessly through the cavities of his brain and allowed no rest. He had to find a place away from his companions to just sit and think. If he didn't, the thoughts would erupt from his mouth and then there would be hell to pay. Plunging into action wouldn't help, or at least change the situation like it had so many times before. For once he had to actually consider the past instead of charging into a blind future. 

The last thing he needed was everyone watching him and pointing out the little reminders that plagued him. He couldn't stand it anymore. Why couldn't they stare at the fire or anywhere else?

"I have to pee," he announced jumping to his feet. His companions blinked in surprise. "I'll…I'll be back in…yeah." He shrugged awkwardly and fled into the woods.

Assured of at least a couple minutes of privacy, Carrot navigated the darkness and maze of tree trunks till he felt adequately far away. With a sigh he sunk to the ground and started to think. It was time for his mind and libido to have a heart-to-heart, as it were. 

First there had been no lack of energy in the desire department upon seeing those robust, and busty, young women town. So on that note he didn't have to worry too much. He still liked the ladies. But then that came to the second problem bothering him: Mille Feuille. 

Carrot groaned in frustration and hit himself. That same damn reaction also happened around the Haz Knight. He couldn't possible be attracted to a guy, not after an entire life spent chasing after females. Thanks to the second encounter he couldn't discount it as a freak reaction, something that wouldn't happen again. Why couldn't he have the comfort of a lie? Why did Mille have to push the issue? Why didn't he resist more…?

Everything had changed. His imperfect, but contented life, had shredded and left him without an anchor. He was Carrot Glace, Messenger of Love, wasn't he? That didn't change just because…

"I am…I am." 

Maybe it was he who had changed…No! He was the same. He refused to concede the slightest possibility of a difference. His mind told him he didn't like Mille that way, didn't like what he did to him, but his libido was quite happy to play the Knight's game. The blood in his cheeks rushed lower at the very thought of the type of game the Knight enjoyed.

"Stupid body." Why couldn't he control it? Why did it always betray him? Again only questions piled up. His mind seemed to be at a standstill with his desire and his body had ideas of its own. 

The mark on his neck was only a few days old, but it still felt tender as if fresh. Carrot squeezed his eyes shut and tugged ineffectually at his spiked hair. The mark was the result of their, Carrot and Mille's, third encounter, as the boy had come to term the meetings. He had been on his way to gather his sword in preparation for the departure later that day. Big Mama had had a mission for them. Confident that Mama would probably have some other task for the tenacious Knight; Carrot had strolled down the hallway to his room with blithe unconcern. Mille had seemed to appear out of thin air. Before the boy could squeak out his normal litany of protests he had found himself pressed against the wall with the Knight's mouth moving purposefully against his own. 

A small shiver raced through Carrot's body at the memory. That same voracious mouth had trailed moistly to his neck and the frenetic pulse at its base. He had only been able to mewl helplessly, wishing for something else. Yes, he had wanted Mille to do more and had been surprised when nothing more had happened. 

"Remember me," Mille had said softly, warm breath brushing against the boy's ear. Then the Knight had vanished, leaving Carrot in a state of physical frustration. Even remembering that brought back the same all too familiar ache. He hadn't had to time to 'relieve' himself of it before, having to meet up with the rest of his companions, but now…

"Brother?" Carrot shot to his feet so fast he saw silver flecks whirl across his vision. Guiltily he hid his hands behind his back even though he hadn't actually started to do anything with them. 

"Marron?" he squeaked as the pale shape of his brother appeared in the forest-darkness. The younger boy smiled with relief at having found his sibling. "Do you…want something…right now?"

"I need to talk to you." Marron moved closer with a hesitance that perplexed Carrot. 

"Oh sure. What's on your mind?" Silence ensued and the elder boy waited with tolerant patience. There was no use in rushing the younger boy. Carrot sneezed during the interlude of silence and blushed in embarrassment. He sure knew how to ruin a moment.

"I-I…want to tell you something and…I'm not sure how…e-exactly…" Carrot made a face at his brother's evasiveness and ran a hand through his hair. Perhaps whatever had brought Marron to his room the other day was the purpose of this conversation as well. The elder boy paused to think on that for a moment. So what did his little brother need to get off his chest?

"Can you give me a general idea? Are you having some sort of…I don't know…difficulty with something?" A shadow slid across the younger boy's face and obscured his face, but Carrot swore he saw a blush.

"Y-yes. What I want to say is rather difficult to…tell…to tell you." Carrot puzzled over the nervous tension that filled the air about his brother. He cocked his head to one side and began to add things up in his head. So he had a stuttering, nervous, possibly blushing younger brother who was having trouble explaining what was on his mind. What did that come out to? Could it be…Marron…? That had to be it…

"I think I understand," Carrot announced grandly. The younger boy blinked in surprise and trepidation. 

"Y-you do?"

"So…who's the lucky girl?"

"What?" The elder boy frowned at his sibling's blatant shock.

"You know, the girl you like. The one you're trying to tell me about," Carrot persisted. "Do I know her? Is she nice? Is she hot?" 

"It's not that…"

"Come one, Marron. You can't act all reserved and stuff around her. If you don't tell someone you like her then well…you'll miss out, let me tell you. Do you need some help? Some coaching?"

"That's not necessary, brother. You misunderstand…"

"If there's anyway I can help, ask. I'll give you all the help you need. I can't believe my little brother has finally discovered girls. Just say the word and I'll give you whatever you need to succeed." 

Marron laughed softly, sadly. He sounded close to tears. Carrot frowned. Had he guessed wrong? If he had, then he had just really put his foot in his mouth.

"Marron?" the elder boy queried with worry.

"I…I want you." Carrot blinked.

"W-what?"

"I want you…as a lover." 

Carrot's mind decided that it hadn't been properly prepared for such a confession and promptly took a vacation. His pulse thundered riotously through his ears, even as his brother's misery-filled words galloped through his consciousness. Want? His brother wanted…No…

"Marron…I-I'm sorry, but I can't…can't be that for you. I can't…"

***

"…I can't…" 

His words slammed into me with the force of the heavens. I watched his face pale in the wan light filtering through the otherwise dark forest. A strange expression flittered across his face and then nothing. His face showed no emotions, but I could see, despite the night, the turmoil and sorrow chasing each other through his eyes. 

"I can't," he repeated and then plunged into the heartless darkness of the forest.

"Brother!" I reached for him, pleading, hurt. Everything had fallen about me and my long time fears had produced bitter fruit. My confession had torn apart the very ground beneath my feet and hurtled me down into a bile-filled despair. I was the one who destroyed the relationship between my brother and I. I had just single handedly crushed it with my selfish desires. 

How could I do that to him? How could I be so insensitive, so careless? I knew such an admission would hurt him, yet I had persisted. I should have been content to watch him from a distance, desire him in secret. 

I couldn't blame Mille for the turn our lives had taken, although he had goaded me on to this heart shattering confrontation. Secretly I had always hoped for acceptance and open arms. I dreamed of it almost every night, but it was just that, a dream. 

Knives of misery speared my heart and left it a bleeding mass in my chest. My knees gave out and I crumpled to the ground. The first sob emerged painfully, sticking in my throat for a moment. My fingers dug into the damp, leaf filled earth and I cried. I cried for myself, for the contentment I had thrown away. 

The precious bond between my brother and I had been irrevocably changed, if not broken entirely. We could never go back to the way things had been. My confession and his subsequent rejection would stand between us like silent sentinels, walls separating us. I had done that. I could not exculpate myself from guilt. 

I had lost him, perhaps forever

***

Tira Misu glanced worriedly between the two brothers. Something had happened, but for the life of her she couldn't figure out what. Tension, like thick ropes, lashed through the air between the two boys. Carrot stared determinedly at the fire, as if it would show him the answers to whatever problem plagued him. Marron looked…cold, emotionally numb.

"Carrot, what happened?" she demanded in a low whisper. The older boy refused to look up or even answer. "Carrot."

"Nothing. You guys can sleep. I'll take first watch." He turned his back to his companions and gazed off into the forest.

"Carrot…" Tira turned to his brother for help, but Marron was watching Carrot with the strangest expression on his pale face. Something most definitely had happened between them, but what?

Sighing, the titian-haired girl decided she could bother them in the morning. The problem would probably still be there. Honestly, though, what could have put a wedge between two people who were so close?

Before she drifted fully off to sleep she heard Carrot sneeze loudly. She'd have to talk to him about that too in the morning. But for now…sleep…

***

From Sarryn:

Don't hate me for that little thing between Marron and Carrot! I just don't think Carrot would fall into his brother's arms so readily. After all he is filled up with all those false notions of masculinity (I blame his father, sorta…). Look how long it's taken the boy to even attempt to accept Mille, which he still hasn't managed to do. I think it'll take more work from Marron to catch our confused little boy. But don't worry, I did say this would be a love triangle. I just never said it would be easy for anyone.

There was only one question and it wasn't really one, but anyway. Sorry, but no Mille x Marron pairing. It's all about the Carrot! Party on the west side…or not…If you are looking for that pairing I think I've seen a few up, can't remember what they're called though. Unfortunately I probably won't write one because I'm so obsessed with Carrot and pairing him with hot guys. Yeah, enough of that though…I'm crazy.

I don't really have a rant, as of yet (working on it!), but ~I~ have a question for all my readers (you're cool!): who should be Carrot's first? I still haven't decided on the threesome thing, but I don't think he's ready, yet, if ever, for more than one. So who should be his first? Mille or Marron? Please tell me and give me some reasons why, if you could. That's all!

Now please REVIEW!!

Next Chapter:

Carrot's sneezes prove to be something worse and Marron confronts a lingering nightmare from his childhood.

From Sarryn:

Answering questions and blah blah blah. Yep, I'll think of a good rant by then, promise!


	4. Fevered

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Sorcerer Hunters, but that hasn't stopped me from writing about them. Although, perhaps I should...

****

Warning: This story contains the themes of incest, maybe some violence, sex (a bit graphic in scenes), and male/male relationships. If any of these may offend you then stop reading. If, however, you do read this, in spite of my warnings, and find it offensive then I have to say it is your own fault. Some scenes are of an erotic nature, but I have attempted to write them as tastefully as my ability allows.

So, anyway, please review and no flames. (Deus, you've read this story! Prepare for death!)

Much Love,

S-girl

Disillusion

The past comes back and when it does it brings pain. 

Ever since that time when my brother fell ill, he became less and more. I watched him with all the admiration and love my young heart could contain, and a great deal more. Yet I couldn't help but notice how he changed, physically. No matter how hard he tried or trained, he could never gain the muscle mass of the other boys his age. Slowly but surely they became stronger, while my brother's strength grew by nearly imperceptible degrees.

Despite his physical inferiority he continued to protect me, but more often than not it would be himself that needed protecting. I noticed, though he never did, and I strove to be there for him, to be the one to protect him like he had protected me before. My goal became the acquisition of whatever power made itself available that would allow me to take over the role my brother had had. I wanted this not for pride, or to prove myself better, but because with every blow he sustained, I felt as if my heart was being ripped into uneven pieces. I loved him so much, with such intensity, that I would have liked nothing better than to hide him away from the world and its cruelties in a place where he would want for nothing and no one could hurt him. 

Then I found a power, my magic, and I could help him. No longer did I have to watch in painful horror as my brother strove to beat up anyone who dared to threaten me. By degrees he forsook his knight in shining armor routine, but he never hesitated to stand up for, to defend, me at a moment's notice. He always did that no matter the risk. 

Though, for all my strength and magic, there was one thing I couldn't save him from, couldn't protect him from. The illness marked him deeper than the stunting of his strength. Afterwards, no sickness, not even a minor cold, could be considered insignificant. The smallest sniffle or cough would turn into a high fever without warning. Forever would his constitution be flawed, though he never seemed to realize this. But I knew.

***

Carrot Glace wished Tira Misu would stop pestering him. First, she had confronted him about his sneezing, asking him if he was really all right. Second, she had demanded to know what had transpired between Marron and him. He told her, repeatedly, that everything was fine and she didn't have to worry. Obviously she didn't believe him, if her tenacity was anything to go by. 

At least she hadn't tried to interrogate his younger brother. The younger Glace had no capacity for dissembling. 

__

"I want you."

A sledgehammer of pain crashed into his brain. Wincing, he rubbed his throbbing temples with one hand. The road before him undulated as if it wanted to trip him. He felt too hot, cold, hot…His mind roared and he could taste his heartbeat in his mouth. 

"Carrot? Are you okay?" Tira asked with concern. Her voice cut into his mind and sent the pain to new heights. 

"I'm f-"

__

"I…I want you."

The road rose to meet him, or he fell, he couldn't tell which, and everything blurred into a sea of darkness. He heard his companions' cries of surprise, but they sounded so distant, as if layers upon layers of cotton separated them. Everything ached, his mind throbbed and his throat burned, yet he shivered as if he had been plunged into ice water.

"C-cold."

__

"I want you…"

He couldn't move. Why couldn't he? Why did his body always fail him? Why wouldn't it listen to him?

__

"…as a lover."

***

__

"I want to take you." Pale blue flames cavorted across the boy's exposed skin. They burned him, yet left no mark. Steam rose from his heated flesh and choked him. He couldn't breathe. It was too hot. Everything burned.

"I want to take you right…now." He struggled against the flames, against the devouring heat, but he couldn't escape. His arms, wreathed in flames, stretched above his head to disappear into a wall of molten butterfly wings. So hot…

"Right…now." Something even hotter than the fire dancing across his prone form brushed his cheek. He turned his head. Golden flames danced across the surface Mille's skin and created a strange halo about his vibrant purple hair. With a dark, penetrating look he leaned forward and caressed the boy's cheek again. The boy shivered as if some alien cold had managed to reach him, invade him. Was this hell? But…

Scorching lips descended upon his own, burning him worse than before. The boy groaned in pain, in pleasure, in confusion. He didn't want the heat sliding into his mouth or the heat, so much more than mere flames, roaming down his chest, but…

"Right here." The branding lips lifted. Eyes of seething gold held his gaze with mercy. He found himself a prisoner beneath the knight of golden fire. So hot…Burning up…

Another fire, so tempting to yield to, raced beneath his sensitized skin. It caused him to want something he didn't dare put into words, didn't dare think to hard upon. This something was more consuming than…

He didn't want it. He didn't.

He craved it.

Without warning a wave of freezing ice swept everything away. 

He screamed. 

***

I held my feverish, delirious brother down in the cold spring water from behind. His pained screams and wild eyes tore my heart to bloody shreds. I wanted to snatch him from the water and swathe him layers of warm blankets, but I couldn't. I had to endure his screams for his own good. If the fever took him, he might not recover. I had to lower his temperature and ignore his distress. 

He thrashed about and it took all my strength to keep him from bolting.

"It's okay, brother. Please calm down," I chanted into his ear. He couldn't hear me, so far lost in the thrall of the fever. 

"What's happening, Marron?" Tira demanded from our campsite by the spring.

"He's having some difficulty staying in the water." My brother issued another shuddering cry and flailed about in my grip. 

"He looks like he's going insane. Are you sure this—"

"Yes. This is the only"—A wave of water swamped my face—"way to lower his temperature." Her glasses turned transparent for a moment and I could see the deep-seated worry in her garnet eyes. 

Drenched in icy water, I held him. I held him closer than ever, and yet I couldn't relish the touch. His pain, his sickness stripped the moment of any desire. My brother's suffering became my own. If only I could truly pull it into my body to bear. 

Finally, he stilled his frenetic motions. Aside from an occasional whimper, only his uneven breathing lacerated my ears. I whispered reassurances against his unhearing ears and waited impatiently for his heated skin to cool.

"Is he better?" I placed a cold hand upon his pain-furrowed brow.

"A little."

Heaving a sigh, I rested my chin against his shoulder. My brother, my poor older brother was suffering and I couldn't do anything. I couldn't offer respite for all my hard won magic. All I could do was hold him in the cold water and hope he would fight the fever on his own. Damn my uselessness. 

Had my con…confession exacerbated this cold? The question had been rolling about the passageways of my mind since my beloved brother had collapsed upon the road. My world had stopped and every childhood horror burst through my thoughts. His rejection tore me to slowly hemorrhaging pieces. His illness ripped whatever remained into indistinguishable bits. I had always wanted to tuck him away in some safe place; a safe place only I could reach. 

I disgusted him with my perverse, abnormal desire. Had I really expected him to welcome me with open arms? I had…In all my foolish, innocent naivete I had thought he would. Would he want me to leave now? I only lived for his happiness, his intoxicating presence, and those brotherly touches that elicited so much more in me. Would we continue as if nothing untoward had occurred? Did he still love me, even as nothing more than a brother? I couldn't very well ask him, even if the chains of sicken were not upon him. 

Finding his temperature sufficiently lowered; I carefully hauled my brother and myself out of the spring. Shivers raked my body. Tira rushed to our side and placed a blanket about my shoulders before turning her attention to my brother. 

"He'll be alright now, right? Carrot will get better, won't he Marron?" Such fierce love and worry rolled through her desperate words. She peered anxiously into my brother's flushed face and stroked his wet hair. A surge of irrational protectiveness burned through my body. I didn't want anyone to touch him that way with such unreserved tenderness.

"He won't give up as long as there are attractive females left in this world," I replied with strained lightness. Attractive females were the bane of my unrealized fantasies. With them around I couldn't hope to garner the attention I craved from my brother. I didn't count Tira or Chocolate, though they were certainly both attractive and female, for my brother treated them as friends or sisters. Though sometimes I wondered if he was as oblivious to them as he seemed.

We wrapped my brother in blankets to ward off further chill and lay him by the fire. Both of us hovered near him like anxious nannies. We fretted and prayed. With a small sound of distress Tira began to half-heartedly prepare lunch with our dry rations. A watched her with belated guilt. Usually I went off fishing so that we didn't have to try to consume those dry discs of nutritionally balanced sawdust, but my worry over my brother had driven all other thoughts away. I suppose that was understandable, but I felt guilty nonetheless.

Why did I always need forgiveness?

***

From Sarryn:

Why has it taken me so long to update? Umm…I blame the government, my parents, pollution and cheese. The penguins, I tell you, are stealing my sanity bit by bit. Seriously though, I was miffed by ff.net's little ban on all nc-17 content. Yeah, I know that's a whole load of crap. Thankfully, I've gotten over it and will now post with abandon, sort of. I can't believe people still read and reviewed recently even though I haven't updated in a couple months. You people are so incredibly cool.

As a side note, all scenes involving graphic descriptions of sex will be posted at mediaminer.org from now on. If there are any such scenes in a chapter, I will let you know so that you can find the full, unabridged edition at the other site. Thanks for reading.

Please Review!

Next Chapter:

Stuff happens. Not feeling that descriptive right now.

From Sarryn:

Will be writing more rants/comments and answering questions. Also will be thinking over the issue brought up in the previous chapter. A decision has yet to be reached on who is to be first. Thanks for your patience. 


	5. Conversation

Disclaimer: I don't own Sorcerer Hunters, but I shall blatantly abuse Carrot until the world ends. Thank you. 

Disillusion

When did I know that I loved my brother in an unconventional matter? You could say that, as I matured, my feelings matured. Or perhaps you could simply blame hormones and the uncertainty inherent in existence. Twelve years of age found me bowled over with a series of the most erotic dreams I have ever experienced. What I found most disturbing, or rather exhilarating, was that my partner was not some nonentity female apparition. I dreamt of my brother.

Perverted? Most certainly, but who has the power to control his own unconscious mind? I am certain that there is some clinical term, perhaps even a cure. However, I do not need a diagnosis or a cure. He is a part of me that I will never be rid of, and I prefer it that way. 

At twelve I could no longer see him as simply my brother, yet I was all too conscious of society. Everyone knows incest is the lowest anathema. Even at that young age I was not immune to the omniscient censure of the world about me. I must admit to a certain childishness in the way I approached my new feelings. Touches became more than casual in my own mind. Looks became filled with meanings that weren't there. My heart was in my mouth whenever he smiled at me. And all the while society watched with raptor eyes. 

I would like to claim maturity in regards to my unnatural desire for my brother, but that would be a lie. I know I am a shell, a covering if you were. People often find it hard to believe that I am the younger sibling. They wouldn't if they knew of the naivete I still harbor inside. 

I still believe my brother could love me that way.

*          *          *

"Marron, we need to talk." I stared blankly at my older brother. He looked grave. He looked uncomfortable. In fact, this was the first time he had spoken to me since my disastrous. The abatement of his illness had not brought about reconciliation. He remained distant and unapproachable for several days after regaining his health. I felt monumental change in the air. 

"Okay." My eloquence fled. I could hear the hateful panic and insecurity in my voice. He did not seem to notice. His dark brown eyes were shadowed with weighty thoughts. He must have been mulling over our situation under his veil of silence. It was too much to hope for a return of my level of affection. I resigned myself to rejection and whether it entailed a physical or emotional separation. He was my brother. I loved him, loved him in sin. 

I followed his lanky body away from this night's campsite. I felt Tira's curious eyes follow our departure. Her approval of our renewed communication trailed after us. She did not know the cause of the rift between my brother and I, and I was not so foolish, or arrogant, to believe her opinion of me would remain unchanged if she were to know. She was not a simple young woman, but she still believed in the power of communication. She was the type of person who liked to try reason before action. 

A sickening apprehension boiled in my stomach as the forest closed about us. I would not cry upon his decision, but to feel nothing asked too much of me. 

I watched him pace back and forth. His spiky hair drooped under the constant motion of his hands through it. An urge to reach out and smooth it down found me raising my hand a few inches. Hastily I stilled it. He failed to notice for his own thoughts consumed him. I waited impatiently. I simply wanted him to blurt out whatever he felt he needed to say so that we could move on. The wait was playing havoc with my nerves. 

With an almost inaudible sigh he shook his head and turned to face me. He stared at a spot just past my right shoulder. It seemed as though he still couldn't bring himself to look me in the eye. I restrained my own sigh. Depression weighed heavily upon my shoulders. 

"I…" He faltered and scratched his head. He seemed decidedly uncomfortable. What I wouldn't give to take everything back. Or, perhaps, I wouldn't. I found my own mind buried beneath a deluge of conflicting thoughts. 

"Brother?" He flinched. Pain lanced my very being. He never flinched before when I called to him. 

"That's right," he murmured softly. His brown eyes briefly caught mine before sliding away. "We are brothers. It wouldn't work. You know…" Oh how I knew. "Besides, I, you know, like girls." He laughed forcibly.

"What about Mille?" The words slipped out before I could stop them. They hung in the air like drifts of poisonous clouds. He blinked in confusion. I had just let slip my twisted act of voyeurism. 

"M-Mille? What about him?"

Too late, much too late, to retract my careless question, my only recourse was to plow on. 

"I saw…"

"You s-saw?" In the wan light I saw him pale horribly. Then blood rushed into his cheeks and he flushed deeply. A string of inarticulate evasions poured from his panicked mouth. Inexplicably, anger welled up within me. For the first time in my conscious memory, I was infuriated with my brother. I had no true reason, besides his inane attempts to brush off the incident in the hallway. 

"Brother, stop it." His voiced died away. He looked shocked that such a harsh, unforgiving tone could come from my mouth. In truth, I was surprised as well. "Just tell me what you were trying to say before."

"Yeah…We're brothers—"

"You have mentioned that already."

"And it wouldn't work."

*          *          *

Carrot Glace shifted restlessly under the piercing, dissecting gaze of his younger brother. Everything he had wanted to say, his explanations and defenses, had sounded perfect in his head. He had rehearsed everything he was going to say a hundred times. And this was what he had to show for it: nothing. 

Marron glared at him, truly glared. Unease skittered up the older boy's spine. 

"You're my little brother," he continued, "And…I love you, but not that way. You know what, this is probably just some phase. You just need to see more of the world." He watched his brother's face smooth out and become completely expressionless. A strange electricity raised the hairs on the back of his neck. 

"You do not understand, brother. This is not some fickle fixation." The younger boy shook his head derisively. Exasperation surged and ebbed about him as he attempted to reign in his emotions. Carrot took a surreptitious step back. 

"I'm sorry?" he offered lamely. 

"Everything is falling apart, isn't it?"

"Uh?" 

Marron stared thoughtfully at his older brother. Carrot shuffled in place. Things were slowly spiraling out of control. First Mille and now his little brother, did the Gods hate him? Did They have some huge meeting and decide to make his life hell? 

"Brother, I want you to listen to me."

"Sure…"

"I want you. I love you. I…I'm in love with you. This will not fade. This is not caused by some external pressure. This is me." Carrot winced at the pain filling his brother's measured voice. This wasn't how his life was supposed to be. These weren't the dilemmas, the problems he was supposed to face. 

"But, Marron, we're—"

"You think I've forgotten? I know we are brothers. I know I am related to you and you to me. I know all about the sin of incest. Why does that have to matter?" Carrot sputtered unintelligibly for a few seconds. How was he supposed to respond? What was the right course to take? 

Every further second in his brother's agitated presence sent him reeling into a primordial darkness. Everything was out of control. His regular, banal life had crumbled around him like a house of cards. He felt small and vulnerable. 

"Why?" He wanted to run away screaming. He wanted to curl into a ball and cry. 

He wanted to be held.

"Brother…" Cool fingertips touched his face. He flinched away.

"Why, Marron? Why me?" The younger boy laughed softly, sorrowfully. 

"Why not? You are the most honest, open person I know. You've known me forever. You know me from when I was a crying child always being bullied by others." Carrot turned his face away. The urge to bolt set his body shaking. Or maybe that was because of…

"Maybe this simply cannot be explained. Maybe that is why it hurts so much." The older boy stiffened as he found himself trapped in a tight embrace. "I just want you. Why does it have to be more complicated?"

Slowly Carrot relaxed. Marron just seemed to want a hug. He could handle that. He wanted to comfort his brother, despite the unsettling confession, but he didn't want to that relationship with him. Hell, he didn't want that kind of relationship with any guy.

What about Mille?

What about him? Those encounters hadn't meant anything. The boy determinedly pushed back fevered images of the effeminate knight. He would not think about skillful fingers caressing him or a hot mouth devouring his own. He would not think about the assortment of helpless noises that poured from his lips. Dammit, he wasn't going to think about that.

If it hadn't been for that insufferable Haz Knight, his life would still be moving along at its own complacent pace, intermixed with moments of blinding intensity. He didn't know for sure, but he was willing to blame Mille Feuille for his brother's impromptu confession. After all, the knight was the root of Carrot's current problems, so why not add in Marron's as well?

"Marron?" His brother remained silent. Carrot tried to wiggle free of the embrace but found that he couldn't. "Are you okay?" A soft sigh met his query and the arms tightened. Carrot found himself nearly smothered against the smooth cloth of his brother's shoulder. After a few moments the arms loosened and he could draw in grateful breaths. 

"I am fine. I just…What do we do now, brother?"

"I-uh…" 

"We cannot go back to the way things were. We would be living a lie then."

Carrot forced a laughed. "Lies are fun."

"No."

"Uh?"

"I refuse to pretend. I'm tired of secrecy and facades," Marron whispered sadly, "Do you still want me around?"

Carrot wanted to scream. Why was Marron making this so difficult? He was perfectly willing to pretend that nothing had happened. Everything would go back to normal. That's what he wanted. He didn't want his little brother to feel unwanted or to feel that Carrot had rejected him. He needed Marron's calm strength. He needed his presence. He wanted to be the strong older brother, the one who protected the younger, but he couldn't. He knew that all too well. He was useless unless someone threw magic at him. 

"I don't want you to go. I need you here," he answered haltingly. Marron was the only close family he had left. His father, damn the jerk, was not someone he liked to hang around with. His little brother had always been his confidant. 

"Brother…" Marron released him and stepped back. The cold rushed in to fill the voice where his warmth had been. The older boy shivered. The younger boy watched him with unreadable black eyes.  

"I know what you believe, that's fine. You don't have to pretend or whatever, just…I'm not willing to be anything but your older brother."

"My older brother?"

"Only that. I'm sorry, but that's how it has to be." Carrot mentally congratulated himself. He sounded reasonable and mature, quite a feat to be sure. Maybe Marron couldn't lie to himself, but Carrot suffered no such disabilities. In no time at all their relationship would be back to normal. Just brothers, that's right. 

*          *          *

"Why?" My brother stared at me in bewilderment. I refused to let him continue with his life pretending our ill-fated conversation had never taken place. 

"Why?" he repeated. 

"You say it is because I am male, yet you have been with Mille, as far as I know. You bring up the fact that we are related. Why does any of this matter?" I wanted to enfold him in my arms again. It had felt so right when I had. Though he had remained rigid for a few minutes, his relaxation into my embrace could be likened to a homecoming. A deep-seated yearning tugged my nerves to strings. 

"It just does." He looked away, refused to meet my eyes. Turmoil rolled around him, through him. 

As I watched him wrestle with his own thoughts, a new determination suffused my entirety. I was through with pining away. I was through with guilt and sorrow. Mille had told me to be the hunter, the pursuer, and that was what I would be. 

"I respect your decision." Relief swept across his face. He grinned with the same impish curving of lips I remembered from before my confession. With that look the last remnants of my irrational anger deliquesced. I never could be angry with him for long, especially not when he smiled so freely, so earnestly. 

Most people wouldn't call him beautiful, but that was because they only saw a portion of him. I have seen it all. He has a beautiful soul. 

Watching his smile from days gone by, I almost rescinded my notion of pursuing him. For a moment I could imagine everything returning to normal. The bittersweet ache of unfulfilled yearning filled me. No, I could not go to the way things were before, not when I had had a glimpse of paradise, heaven, eternal joy, whatever one might choose to call this divine bliss.  

*          *          *

From Sarryn:

Long delay, and again I find myself needing to apologize. This story requires serious inspiration. When it comes it comes, and when it doesn't, well, you can see the results. Enough said, ne? 

I have decided on the pairings. Huzzah. And I have decided that the next chapter will have a lemon. Look for it at mediaminer.org or adultfanfiction.net. Unless, of course, I feel particularly bold, then I will post it at ff.net.

Now please REVIEW!!  
  


Next Chapter:

Marron pursues Carrot. Mille comes back into the picture.

From Sarryn:

More things to say. More things to do.  
  
  



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